The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH-USA) has reported that requests to withdraw some proposed regulations have fallen on deaf ears at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In late December, Senators Orrin Hatch (R–UT) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) requested by joint letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg that the agency scratch the draft New Dietary Ingredients Guidance (NDIG) and start over with industry input.

But, the outcome of a late-January meeting of the senators with FDA’s Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D., indicated that the document would not be withdrawn. Stated ANH-USA on its Web site, “According to our sources, FDA has turned down the senators’ request. FDA in effect said that it is refusing to reconsider its interpretation of what the NDI section of DSHEA means, regardless of what Sens. Hatch and Harkin say they meant when they wrote the law.”

The group encouraged the public to ask their Congressmen to make a one-minute floor speech opposing NDIG.

Published in WholeFoods Magazine, March 2012